Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1887-03-26
ssThe Flowers that Bloom in the
Spring.'
Written for THE EVENING STAR.

Spring."
Written for THE EVENING STAR.
| The famous song of the "Mikado" may have had
its day, but the subject Of the song, the flowers
themselves, shall they ever cease to charm the
human heart? Not as long as man is man. II
Shakespeare bids us beware Of him who has no
music in his soul, what shall we say OF him who Is
not moved with the melody Of those sweet notes
which the heavenly Tyre let's drop making the face
OF the earth one enhancing symphony? We shall
not ask you TO wander forth in the woods to gather
nosegay; the winds are too chill and the air too
cold to allow them to venture as yet from their
converts underneath the ground; but the woods
OF literature are full Of them, and every poet sits
like bird, perched upon some shrub or tree
warbling praises to all things beautiful. And
what more beautiful than flowers7 There is the
fairy formed Anemone. Bion says this flower
sprang from the tears shed by Venus for the loss
OF Adonis when slain by the wild boar. Be this as
1t may, 1t is one OF the fa1rest OF Springs flowers
Alfred Austen calls them
"SheHs flung far and wide
BY winters now fast ebbng tide;"
while our own Bryant ailudes to it as the little
Wind-nOwer,
whose inst opened eve
Is blue as the spring heaven it gazes at"
The violet Is familiar TO all This flower Is quite
dumb In one respectful cannot speak In scent.
Stu
Glance up to the cerulean skies,
And challenge them to match the glow
OF their own bluer heaven below
Heine calls them the ''eyes OF Spring." and Lam
don "AprtlS lOvelieSt cOrOnetS." TennySOD finds
comfort In the thought that from the ashes of his
friend
The violet Of his native land"
And in another part OF the same immortal poem he
says:
"And in my breast
Spring wakens, too, and my regret
Becomes an April violet"
But what shall we say Of that milky way Of
pr1mrOSeS? This Hover was the favOrite OF the
late BeacOnsf1eld. and Is yet the emblem OF the
conservative party. But what is this to us? We
would rather commune with 1t, and find, with
BOwleS, that
"As just a lesson it may speak
As that which Is in books"
Henry Kirke White has a very bold image in his
poem on "The Early Primrose"
Thee s when M first Spring qneston'd Winters sway,
To mark his victory
Then, there is the trailing arbutus, 'the flower
whose early bridal makes the festival Of SPRING."
the bOOd-rOOt
And touched with soft peculiar bloom.
And is P ts Midst isn xih 81 at Eo
the daffOdilS,
Ths ans the sSsw and take
the cOwSlip, which TennySOn somewhere calls
''the faint sweet cuckoo 1Owern the crocus which
LongIellow places in the crown OF the king Of
OF His authority"
And last but not least, the dandelion. common
flower, you say? Be 1t even SO; but as Henry
Ward Beecher says, sit Is all the better for being
common" What Is more beautiful than these
golden kisses all over the cheeks OF the Meadow"
Lowell considers this 'dear common flower" more
dear to him than all the prOuder summer blooms:
9S oxsr at beside
First pledge OF bhthesome May,
Which children pluck and full of pride uphold.
high hearted buccaneers overjoyed that they
An EldOrado i'll the grass have found,
Winch not the rich earth's ample round
May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me
Than all the prouder summer blooms may be-"
And so say We These, then, are some Of ssthe
flowers that bloom in thespring" gathered as we
before said, not In the groves and woods but on
the mountains and in the valleys OF pOesy.
dAGERSToWN, I'D March, 1857. +. J. 81.